Street, Troy. As always, please bring a vegan dish to share as well as your own drink and place setting. This is not only a vegan event, but it is also hosted in a vegan facility. If you’re unsure what ingredients are vegan please feel free to ask us. You can RSVP on Facebook or Meetup.

We’re still raising money for the Northeast Animal Liberation Festival on May 7th. There is now a Paypal Donate button on the right hand side of our website and you can always buy ADK-AR shirts at all of our events. We hope to have shirts as well as our chili cookzine up on the website for sale soon.

We’ve stocked X’s to O’s literature section with circus cruelty handouts. Ringling Bros will be in Albany in May, but it’s important to reach out to people before they purchase their tickets. Please consider picking up some of the literature and handing it out around your town. Thank you in advance!

We’re putting the final touches on an exciting event that will be announced in the next few days. Keep Wednesday evening, April 13th open and check back soon for details!

We still have time to share the truth about circus cruelty with people before they buy tickets to Ringling Bros. at the Times Union Center. An easy way to reach a lot of people is to send a letter to the editor to your local newspaper. The opinion page is the second most read section of a newspaper, so you will have a very large audience!

Be timely – Capitalize on recent news and events, respond within 24 hours of a story if possible. Be sure to refer to the article or event you are responding to in the first sentence of the letter.

Keep it short and simple – Under 250 words ideally, even less if you can. Research the paper or magazine you are writing to see if they have a specific word limit. Keep your points clear and stick to one subject. Look at the editorial page of the publication you’re writing to and copy the format they normally print.

Think locally – Demonstrate how this issue effects you locally, and – if possible – mention lawmakers or news makers by name to ensure you get their attention.
Sign your letter. Include your name, address and telephone number. Papers may need to contact you if they are considering printing your letter. Don’t worry—they won’t print your phone or street address.

Follow-up. If the newspaper doesn’t call you, call them! Speak to the person in charge of letters to the editor (You should know who this is before writing your letter). Ask if they plan on printing your letter, and if not, ask if they have any feedback for you. Thank them for their time and feedback.

Here are some area newspapers with links to their LTE submission page:

This year we want to focus on educating the public before they even purchase tickets. We’re going to collect literature (contact us for some or download here: http://www.idausa.org/shop-ida/lit6.html).

Join us for a leafletting event (to be scheduled) or go out on your own! Any busy location will work!

NOTE: Protests will be held one hour before each showtime above (two hours before Thursday’s showtime), however Saturday is the Northeast Animal Liberation Festival and Bold Native screening at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy. If you were not planning on attending this event, we encourage you to attend the Ringling protests in our absence. Thank you for your understanding and please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.

The new year will be bringing many new and exciting things. We’re revamping the website and we’ve organized our first event of the year: our First Annual Vegan Chili Cookoff at X’s to O’s Vegan Bakery on January 22nd. (More details to come on that soon!) We’re also introducing blog posts about many different subjects, so you’ll be seeing much more than just news and updates about events here. This is going to be a very exciting addition to the website. If you’d like to submit a blog entry, please send it to us at adkanimalrights@gmail.com for our review.

Is your New Year’s Resolution to go vegan? It’s never too late to choose compassion in the new year! We’ll be releasing details soon about vegan resolution support. Stay tuned for more!